Game Mess Mornings 01/20/23

Thanks for your kind and heartfelt commentary this morning Jeff.

Big hugs to the GB crew, you're all real ones - thank you for keeping the truck rolling the best you can under the circumstances.

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OOF.

Much love to you and the rest of the Giantbomb team, Jeff. I still am in shock and awe from what happened. Thank you for addressing this head on and thank you for all that you guys do to try to keep this thing running. We were all lucky to have had both you and Jess (and the rest of the new additions for that matter) to breathe life back into GB.

Obviously it stings to see the site getting back on its feet just to have it knocked back down again and I feel for all of you.

Whatever form Giantbomb takes in the future I will be there to follow it.

Fandom is awful and trash. I hope they sell you guys to someone who will show you some respect. Giant Bomb doesn't deserve to be owned by the idiot CEO Perkins Miller.

On a positive note, great to see Ben. MinnMax is awesome.

Flabbergasted by the layoff news. Hope they all land on their feet & Giantbomb can continue to make the content you guys want to make.

Much love to Jess, Jason, and Justin, and to those of you left to deal with the fallout. Appreciate you talking about it, Jeff; I don't think anyone here expects you to just carry on as if nothing happened.

Who the heck is running the company? I can't believe the turnover rate giantbomb has now

I feel so bad for the team and especially for Jess and Jason. This Sucks. I want to continue to support the team but I just can't justify giving any more money to Fandom leadership. My subscription runs out in June, and unless big changes happen upstream, I'm done. Sorry to the team, I love you guys.

When Ryan passed I honestly was heartbroken for days. However the community pulled together with their love of Ryan, plus Drew really stepped up as a member of the team and the site kept going.

When Patrick left I was in shock, he felt like a pillar of the site and even though he was working from home, he was making it work with Alex and putting in solid solo work. But I understood the decision.

When Austin left I hated hearing it until I found out he and Patrick were joining forces to start Waypoint, so it felt like a step forward for the industry.

When Drew announced Cloth Map it seemed like a great use of his skills and despite losing him, I still had his Formula 1 podcast to have his presence in my life and even though it didn’t last, it was the perfect experiment for someone with his talent to try.

I truly thought Dan, Ben, and Abby were the future of Giant Bomb. Younger than the core crew, enthusiastic about games and extremely entertaining. When they left I was really worried because they could have taken the baton from the OG crew and made the site something of their own while maintaining its spirit. However, we still had the original team who seemed like they still had a fire in them to keep going.

When Nextlander was formed it felt like it may be the end, but we still had Jeff G to rebuild the bomb. He was the original architect and if one man could do it, he was the guy.

Then Jeff left and despite everything I’ve said, I maintained hope. The core nine they showed were solid. Dan was back, Grubb is great, Jan is a natural leader, Bakalar is an excellent diplomat, Jess was an incredible help to everyone, Jason’s experience would keep the train on the tracks, the GameSpot people were super charismatic, and Rorie is Rorie! We were entering a new phase of Giant Bomb, different than anything before especially since work from home was the norm now, but still very fun.

Now for the first time I have no hope. That is not me wishing for the site to fail, far from it. And maybe it’s because these were the first to be “laid off” and not leave of their own accord (ignoring Jeff G’s situation but it was kind of 50/50 since he was leaving anyway even though they screwed him, and besides that was Red Ventures!) but it just feels like we are in the end times.

Like it has been said, you don’t know when you are in the good old days but I look back to when GB was Whiskey Media and the upstairs years at CBSi and realize that was as good as it would ever be. The magic was as strong as it would ever be at that time.

Now it’s just a gaming site, not that different from anywhere else. I will be sad if it ends but that just seems to be the way the industry works now. I have other places that provide similar commentary. The Besties are great, I think Waypoint is truly Important as Bakalar would say, Fire Escape and Nextlander have some of that old school banter and feeling.

I love all of the duders, past and present, and I will go down with the ship, but even the Bombcast is one of my lowest priorities every week and after close to a decade I let my premium lapse. I hate what this industry does to good people.

<>

This is, imo, the end of Giant Bomb. Because why would anyone still working here even have faith that they're not going to be laid off tomorrow no matter how important to the site and how awesome and integral they have been over the years. I certainly don't have any faith in the suits to not just gut and kneecap things even more, regardless of how much effort the people working here put in and how much the fans show up, because this lay off decision shows that there is literally no rhyme or reason to anything at the upper management at this website anymore, the suits who keep managing to fuck up a website people have loved for years despite said fuckery. I'm pretty sure all Fandom wants is the wiki back end tech and is willing to let the actual soul of the place wither and die, and that's fucking bullshit.

I hope Xbox's Halo and Bungie's Destiny won't have a bad future after this.

Cancelled my sub because I cannot justify giving Fandom money. From their unusable garbage wiki to their clown of a CEO Fandom is a shitshow. I think the remaining peeps know this and it must be so frustrating for them. How cool would it be if they all just walked out, got the band back together, and collaborated on something organic? Easy right? I know… but one can dream. Dammit Matt Rorie use your chaotic genius to figure this out! You’re basically the wolf from Pulp Fiction and Q from Star Trek TNG mixed into one.

Love y’all and I believe everone fucked will be alright because they’re just too damn talented.

FUCK FANDOM.

These two have a good repour.

I'll be keeping my subscription going because I love Grubb, Bakalar, Ryckert, Jan, Lucy & Tam (hope I didn't forget anyone!), and Fandom doesn't care about our sub money, it's the overall company value they care about. Cancelling in protest only hurts the folks we look forward to seeing, not the investors up top.

@blitzfitness:

Rorie!

@blitzfitness: the problem is all the people i previously loved from OG Giant Bomb are gone. If Jan and Jeff wasn't here I'd be done.

@virtuacat: D'oh! I knew I missed someone!

@gchex: Oh for sure, I understand that. My concern is more targeted at those who would like to stay but are choosing not to in the hopes that it would somehow hurt the owners.

@bb4lake:I tried, but I just can't keep up with the change, its nothing like any of its many iterations anymore. Maybe I'm just too old now after following this thing for 13 fecking years now. Nextlander gives a little bit of that magic back so I've gone there. I hope the site continues but it feels better to follow independent outlets that don't have the sword of Damocles hanging over these people's lives and careers. Fuck the suits that will never have to pay for bad decisions and just fuck this capitalist bs in general.